View source for Majdanek concentration camp

{{Short description|Nazi concentration camp in Poland (1941–1944)}}
{{Redirect|Majdanek}}
{{pp-extended|small=yes}}
{{coord|51|13|14|N|22|35|58|E|region:PL-MA_type:landmark|display=title}}
{{Infobox concentration camp
| name         = Majdanek / Lublin
| type         = [[Nazi concentration camp]]
| image        = File:2013 KL Majdanek crematorium - 01.jpg
| image size   = 
| caption      = Building of the ''New Crematorium'' 
[[File:WW2-Holocaust-Poland.PNG|frameless]]
| other names  = 
| known for    = 
| location     = Near [[Lublin]], [[General Government]] (German-occupied Poland)
| built by     = 
| operated by  = [[SS-Totenkopfverbände]]
| commandant   = {{plainlist|
* [[Karl-Otto Koch]] (Sep. 1941–Aug. 1942)
* [[Max Koegel]] (Aug. 1942–Nov. 1942)
* [[Hermann Florstedt]] (Nov. 1942–Oct. 1943)
* [[Martin Gottfried Weiss]] (Nov. 1943–May 1944)
* [[Arthur Liebehenschel]] (May 1944–July 1944)
}}
| original use    = [[Forced labour under German rule during World War II|Forced labor]]
| construction    = 
| in operation    = {{Dts|1941|October|1}} – {{Dts|1944|July|22}}
| gas chambers    = 
| prisoner type   = Jews, Poles
| inmates         = 150,000
| killed          = Estimated 78,000
| liberated by    = [[Soviet Union]], July 22, 1944
| notable inmates = 
| notable books   = 
| website         = 
}}

'''Majdanek''' (or '''Lublin''') was a [[Nazi concentration camps|Nazi concentration]] and [[extermination camp]] built and operated by the [[SS]] on the outskirts of the city of [[Lublin]] during the [[German occupation of Poland]] in [[World War II]]. It had three [[gas chamber]]s,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Lublin/Majdanek Concentration Camp: Conditions |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/lublin-majdanek-concentration-camp-conditions |website=Holocaust Enyclopedia |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum}}</ref> two wooden gallows, and some 227 structures in all, placing it among the largest of [[Nazi Party|Nazi]] concentration camps. Although initially intended for [[Forced labour under German rule during World War II|forced labor]] rather than [[extermination camp|extermination]], it was used to murder people an estimated 78,000 people during [[Operation Reinhard]], the German plan to [[The Holocaust in Poland|murder all Polish Jews]] within their own [[General Government|occupied homeland]]. In operation from 1 October 1941 to 22 July 1944, it was captured nearly intact. The [[Lublin–Brest offensive|rapid advance]] of the Soviet [[Red Army]] during [[Operation Bagration]] prevented the SS from destroying most of its infrastructure, and Deputy Camp Commandant [[Anton Thernes]] failed to remove the most incriminating evidence of war crimes.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Nicholas|first1=Lynn H.|title=Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web|date=2009|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-307-73971-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-9bQ7hYlI-8C}}</ref>

The camp was nicknamed Majdanek ("little Majdan") in 1941 by local residents, as it was adjacent to the Lublin ghetto of Majdan Tatarski. Nazi documents initially described the site as a [[Prisoner-of-war camp|POW camp]] of the [[Waffen-SS]], based on how it was funded and operated. It was renamed by the [[Reich Security Main Office]] as ''Konzentrationslager Lublin'' on April 9, 1943, but the local Polish name remained more popular.<ref name="KL Lublin(9.04.1943)">{{cite web|url=http://michal.nintendos.pl/obozy/majdanek/zalozenia%20i%20budowa%20%28m%29.html |title=Założenia i budowa (Purpose and construction, selection of photographs) |publisher=KL Lublin Majdanek.com.pl |work=Majdanek concentration camp |access-date=2013-04-18 |quote=Concentration camp name change 9.04.1943. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110102231838/http://michal.nintendos.pl/obozy/majdanek/zalozenia%20i%20budowa%20%28m%29.html |archive-date=January 2, 2011 }}</ref>

After the camp's liberation in July 1944, the site was formally protected by the [[Soviet Union]].<ref name="Majdanek-1 YV">{{cite web|year=2007|title=Majdanek|url=http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%206622.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071127031515/http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%206622.pdf|archive-date=November 27, 2007|access-date=2013-04-14|work=Majdanek concentration camp|publisher=Yad Vashem}}</ref> By autumn, with the war still raging, it had been preserved as a museum. The [[crematorium]] ovens and gas chambers were largely intact, serving as some of the best examples of the [[Final Solution|genocidal policy]] of [[Nazi Germany]]. The site was given national designation in 1965.<ref name="majdanek.eu-Kalendarium" /> Today, the [[Majdanek State Museum]] is a [[The Holocaust|Holocaust]] memorial museum and education centre devoted entirely to the memory of atrocities committed in the network of concentration, slave-labor, and extermination camps and sub-camps of ''KL Lublin.'' It houses a permanent collection of rare artifacts, archival photographs, and testimony.<ref name="BIP">{{cite web|year=2006|title=Regulamin organizacyjny Państwowego Muzeum na Majdanku|url=http://www.majdanek.eu/articles.php?acid=65|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303233525/http://www.majdanek.eu/articles.php?acid=65|archive-date=March 3, 2016|access-date=April 28, 2013|work=Dz. U. z 1947 r. nr 52, poz. 265|publisher=Biuletyn Informacji Publicznej (Bulletin of Public Information, Republic of Poland)}}</ref>

==History==
===Construction===
{{OSM Location map
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}}
''Konzentrationslager Lublin'' was established in October 1941 on the orders of ''[[Reichsführer-SS]]'' [[Heinrich Himmler]], forwarded to [[Odilo Globocnik]] soon after Himmler's visit to Lublin on 17–20 July 1941 in the course of [[Operation Barbarossa]], the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The original plan drafted by Himmler was for the camp to hold at least 25,000 POWs.<ref name="majdanek.eu/2006">{{cite web | url=http://www.majdanek.eu/articles.php?aid=477&acid=219 | title=Rok 1941 | publisher=Państwowe Muzeum na Majdanku | work=KL Lublin 1941–1944. Historia | date=2006 | access-date=5 July 2015 | author=Muzeum | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110815183304/http://www.majdanek.eu/articles.php?aid=477&acid=219 | archive-date=15 August 2011 }}</ref>

After large numbers of Soviet [[prisoners-of-war]] were captured during the [[Battle of Kiev (1941)|Battle of Kiev]], the projected camp capacity was subsequently increased to 50,000. Construction for that many began on October 1, 1941 (as it did also in [[Auschwitz-Birkenau]], which had received the same order). In early November, the plans were extended to allow for 125,000 inmates and in December to 150,000.<ref name="majdanek.eu/2006"/> It was further increased in March 1942 to allow for 250,000 Soviet prisoners of war.

Construction began with 150 Jewish forced laborers from one of Globocnik's Lublin camps, to which the prisoners returned each night. Later the workforce included 2,000 [[Red Army]] POWs, who had to survive extreme conditions, including sleeping out in the open. By mid-November, only 500 of them were still alive, of whom at least 30% were incapable of further labor. In mid-December, barracks for 20,000 were ready when a [[typhus]] epidemic broke out, and by January 1942 all the slave laborers – POWs as well as [[Polish Jews]] – were dead. All work ceased until March 1942, when new prisoners arrived. Although the camp did eventually have the capacity to hold approximately 50,000 prisoners, it did not grow significantly beyond that size.{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}

===Operation===
{{further|The Holocaust in Poland}}
<!--PANORAMA-->
[[File:Majdanek (June 24, 1944).jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|left|Aerial photograph of Majdanek (June 24, 1944). From bottom: the barracks under deconstruction with visible chimney stacks still standing, planks of wood piled up along the supply road, intact barracks.]]

In July 1942, Himmler visited [[Bełżec extermination camp|Belzec]], [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibor]], and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]], the three secret [[extermination camp]]s built specifically for Operation Reinhard to eliminate [[History of the Polish Jews|Polish Jewry]]. These camps had begun operations in March, May, and July 1942, respectively. Subsequently, Himmler issued an order that the deportations of Jews to the camps from the five districts of [[Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)|occupied Poland]], which constituted the Nazi ''[[General Government|Generalgouvernement]]'', be completed by the end of 1942.<ref name="Beevor584">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/secondworldwar00beev |url-access=registration |quote=Totenkopfverbände. |title=The Second World War |publisher=Little, Brown |date=2012 |author-link=Antony Beevor |first=Antony |last=Beevor |pages=[https://archive.org/details/secondworldwar00beev/page/584 584]– |isbn=978-0-316-08407-9}}</ref>

Majdanek was made into a secondary sorting and storage depot at the onset of Operation Reinhard, for property and valuables taken from the victims at the killing centers in Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka.<ref name="ushmm_cond"/> Due to large Jewish populations in southeastern Poland, including the ghettos at [[Kraków Ghetto|Kraków]], [[Lwów Ghetto|Lwów]], [[Zamość]] and [[Warsaw Ghetto|Warsaw]], which were not yet "processed", Majdanek was refurbished as a killing center around March 1942. The gassing was performed in plain view of other inmates, without as much as a fence around the buildings. Another frequent murder method was shootings by the squads of [[Trawnikis]].<ref name="Reszka" /> According to the [[Majdanek Museum]], the gas chambers began operation in September 1942.<ref>{{citation|chapter=Timeline of the most important events / 1942 |title=State Museum at Majdanek |chapter-url=http://www.majdanek.eu/articles.php?aid=478&acid=219 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141113175628/http://www.majdanek.eu/articles.php?aid=478&acid=219 |archive-date=2014-11-13 }}</ref>
[[File:Transport nowo przybyłych więźniów w obozie koncentracyjnym na Majdanku.jpg|thumb|Arrival of new inmates.]]
[[File:Puszki z cyklonem B w obozie koncentracyjnym na Majdanku.jpg|thumb|Zyklon B stored in the camp.]]
There are two identical buildings at Majdanek where [[Zyklon B]] was used. Executions were carried out in barrack 41 with crystalline hydrogen cyanide released by the Zyklon B. The same poison gas pellets were used to disinfect prisoner clothing in barrack 42.<ref>{{cite web|title=Majdanek Concentration Camp (a.k.a. KL Lublin) |website=Holocaust Research Project |author=S.J. |author2=Chris Webb |author3=Carmelo Lisciotto |author4=H.E.A.R.T |year=2007 |url=http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/majdanek.html }} ''[Compare with:]'' {{cite web|url=http://www.holocaust-history.org/~jamie/buchanan/ |title=Pat Buchanan and the Holocaust |publisher=The Holocaust History Project |date=September 15, 1999 |access-date=2017-03-19 |author=Jamie McCarthy |id=''Note:'' At Majdanek, no exhaust-producing engines were installed to kill prisoners |via=Internet Archive |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120303184223/http://www.holocaust-history.org/~jamie/buchanan/ |archive-date=March 3, 2012 }}</ref>

Due to the pressing need for foreign manpower in the war industry, Jewish laborers from Poland were originally spared. For a time they were either kept in the ghettos, such as [[Warsaw Ghetto|the one in Warsaw]] (which became a concentration camp after the [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]]), or sent to labor camps such as Majdanek, where they worked primarily at the [[Steyr-Daimler-Puch]] weapons/munitions factory.

By mid-October 1942, the camp held 9,519 registered prisoners, of whom 7,468 (or 78.45%) were Jews, and another 1,884 (19.79%) were non-Jewish Poles. By August 1943, there were 16,206 prisoners in the main camp, of which 9,105 (56.18%) were Jews and 3,893 (24.02%) were non-Jewish Poles.<ref name="ushmm_cond">{{citation|author=Holocaust Encyclopedia |title=Lublin/Majdanek Concentration Camp: Overview |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |year=2006 |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005190 |format=Internet Archive |access-date=4 November 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120118204427/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005190 |archive-date=January 18, 2012 }}.</ref> Minority contingents included Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians, Germans, Austrians, Slovenes, Italians, and French and Dutch nationals. According to the data from the official Majdanek State Museum, 300,000 people were inmates of the camp at one time or another. The prisoner population at any given time was much lower.{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}

From October 1942 onward Majdanek also had female overseers. These SS guards, trained at the [[Ravensbrück concentration camp]], included [[Elsa Ehrich]], [[Hermine Boettcher-Brueckner]], [[Hermine Braunsteiner]], [[Hildegard Lächert]], Rosy Suess (Süss), Elisabeth Knoblich-Ernst, Charlotte Karla Mayer-Woellert, and [[Gertrud Heise]] (1942–1944), who were later convicted as war criminals.<ref name="axishistory74732">{{cite web | url=http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=74732 | title=KZ Aufseherinnen | publisher=Axis History ‹ Women in the Reich | work=Majdanek Liste | date=3 Apr 2005 | access-date=April 1, 2013 }} ''Source:'' See: index or articles ("Personenregister"). ''Oldenburger OnlineZeitschriftenBibliothek.''{{cite web |url=http://www.bis.uni-oldenburg.de/bisverlag/taaang98/inhalt.html |title=Frauen in der SS |access-date=2005-01-26 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070606114839/http://www.bis.uni-oldenburg.de/bisverlag/taaang98/inhalt.html |archive-date=June 6, 2007 }}</ref>

Majdanek did not initially have subcamps. These were incorporated in early autumn 1943 when the remaining forced labor camps around Lublin, including Budzyn, [[Trawniki concentration camp|Trawniki]], [[Poniatowa concentration camp|Poniatowa]], Krasnik, Pulawy, as well as the "Airstrip" ("[[Lublin airfield camp|Airfield]]"), and [[Lipowa 7 camp|"Lipowa 7"]]) concentration camps became sub-camps of Majdanek.{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}

From 1 September 1941 to 28 May 1942, Alfons Bentele headed the Administration in the camp. Alois Kurz, SS [[Untersturmführer]], was a German staff member at Majdanek, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and at Mittelbau-Dora. He was not charged. On 18 June 1943, [[Fritz Ritterbusch]] moved to KL Lublin to become aide-de-camp to the Commandant.<ref>Biogram Fritza Ritterbuscha na www.MAJDANEK.com.pl</ref>

Due to the camp's proximity to Lublin, prisoners were able to communicate with the outside world through letters smuggled out by civilian workers who entered the camp.<ref name="kurier_letters"/> Many of these surviving letters have been donated by their recipients to the camp museum.<ref name="kurier_letters"/> In 2008 the museum held a special exhibition displaying a selection of those letters.<ref name="kurier_letters">{{citation|last=Czerwinska|first=Ewa|title=Listy z piekła|periodical=Kurier Lubelski|date=August 19, 2008|url=http://www.kurierlubelski.pl/module-dzial-viewpub-tid-9-pid-61237.html|access-date=February 12, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303184021/http://www.kurierlubelski.pl/module-dzial-viewpub-tid-9-pid-61237.html|archive-date=March 3, 2016}}.</ref>

From February 1943 onward, the Germans allowed the [[Polish Red Cross]] and [[Central Welfare Council]] to bring in food items to the camp.<ref name="kurier_letters"/> Prisoners could receive food packages addressed to them by name via the Polish Red Cross. The Majdanek Museum archives document 10,300 such itemized deliveries.<ref name="majdanek_museum_1">{{citation|chapter=List of archives |title=Kartoteka PCK |author=Majdanek State Museum |chapter-url=http://www.majdanek.pl/articles.php?acid=19 |year=2006 |via=Internet Archive |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070917053625/http://www.majdanek.pl/articles.php?acid=19 |archive-date=September 17, 2007 }}.</ref>

===Cremation facilities===
{{multiple image
| direction = vertical | header=Cremation facilities at Majdanek  | header_background=#F0E2B4 | width=220
|image1=Smoke rising from Majdanek.jpg
|caption1=Smoke rising from Majdanek, October 1943
| image2    = Verbrennungsöfen Majdanek - Fotothek df pk 0000125 003.jpg
| caption2  = [[Red Army]] soldiers examining the ovens of the burned-down ''New Crematorium'', following the camp's liberation, summer 1944
| image3    = Majdanek - crematorium ovens.JPG
| caption3  = Preserved original ovens in the reconstructed building of the ''New Crematorium'' (closeup)
}}
Until June 1942, the bodies of those murdered at Majdanek were buried in mass graves<ref name="jewishvirtuallibrarycrematoriumatmajdanek">{{cite web |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/crematorium-at-majdanek |title=Crematorium at Majdanek |publisher=Jewish Virtual Library |year=2013 |access-date=2022-03-03}}</ref> (these were later exhumed and burned by the prisoners assigned to ''[[Sonderkommando 1005]]'').

From June 1942, the SS disposed of the bodies by burning them, either on pyres made from the chassis of old lorries or in a crematorium. The so-called ''First Crematorium'' had two ovens which were brought to Majdanek from the [[Sachsenhausen concentration camp]].<ref name="jewishvirtuallibrarycrematoriumatmajdanek"/> This facility stood in "Interfield I", the area between the first and the second fenced camp section;<ref>See File:Alians PL Lublin StateMuseumKL Majdanek,2007 05 20,P5200312.jpg</ref> it is no longer in existence today.<ref name="jewishvirtuallibrarycrematoriumatmajdanek"/>

In autumn of 1943, the first crematorium at Majdanek was replaced by the ''New Crematorium''. It was a T-shaped wooden building with five ovens, fueled with [[Coke (fuel)|coke]] and built by the Heinrich Kori [[GmbH]] of Berlin. The building was set on fire by the Germans on 22 July 1944 as they abandoned the camp on the day that the Red Army entered the outskirts of Lublin. The  crematorium building which stands on the site today is a reconstruction from the time when the former camp became a memorial. Its ovens are the original ones built in 1943.<ref name="jewishvirtuallibrarycrematoriumatmajdanek"/>

===''Aktion Erntefest''===
Operation Reinhard continued until early November 1943, when the last Jewish prisoners of the Majdanek system of subcamps from the District Lublin in the [[General Government]] were massacred by the firing squads of [[Trawniki men]] during [[Aktion Erntefest|Operation "Harvest Festival"]]. With respect to the main camp at Majdanek, the most notorious executions occurred on November 3, 1943, when 18,400 Jews were murdered in a single day.<ref>{{citation|editor-last=Lawrence|editor-first=Geoffrey|chapter=Session 62: February 19, 1946|title=The Trial of German Major War Criminals: Sitting at Nuremberg, Germany|year=1946|volume=7|page=111|chapter-url=http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-07/tgmwc-07-62-01.shtml|location=London|publisher=HM Stationery Office|display-editors=etal|access-date=December 16, 2008|archive-date=May 16, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130516222348/http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-07/tgmwc-07-62-01.shtml|url-status=dead}}.</ref> The next morning, 25 Jews who had succeeded in hiding were found and shot. Meanwhile, 611 other prisoners, 311 women and 300 men, were commanded to sort through the clothes of the dead and cover the burial trenches. The men were later assigned to ''[[Sonderkommando 1005]]'', where they had to exhume the same bodies for cremation. These men were then executed. The 311 women were subsequently sent to [[Auschwitz]], where they were murdered by gas. By the end of ''Aktion Erntefest'' ("Harvest Festival"), Majdanek had only 71 Jews left out of the total number of 6,562 prisoners still alive.<ref name="ushmm_cond"/>
[[File:Majdanek - enterace.jpg|thumb|right|Inconspicuous structure for murder. [[Shower]]s (left), and similarly built [[gas chamber]]s (right).]]

Executions of the remaining prisoners continued at Majdanek in the following months. Between December 1943 and March 1944, Majdanek received approximately 18,000 so-called "invalids", many of whom were subsequently murdered with [[Zyklon B]]. Executions by firing squad continued as well, with 600 shot on January 21, 1944; 180 shot on January 23, 1944; and 200 shot on March 24, 1944.{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}



Adjutant Karl Höcker's postwar trial documented his culpability in mass murders committed at this camp: <blockquote>On 3 May 1989 a district court in the German city of Bielefeld sentenced Höcker to four years imprisonment for his involvement in gassing to death prisoners, primarily Polish Jews, in the concentration camp Majdanek in Poland. Camp records showed that between May 1943 and May 1944 Höcker had acquired at least {{convert|3,610|kg|lb}} of Zyklon B poisonous gas for use in Majdanek from the Hamburg firm of [[Tesch & Stabenow]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www1.jur.uva.nl/junsv/brd/files/brd906.htm |title=Justiz und NS-Verbrechen |access-date=2012-12-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120322184352/http://www1.jur.uva.nl/junsv/brd/files/brd906.htm |archive-date=2012-03-22 }}</ref></blockquote> In addition, Commandant [[Rudolf Höss]] of Auschwitz wrote in his memoirs, while awaiting trial in Poland, that one method of murder used at Majdanek (KZ Lublin) was Zyklon B.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Höss |first=Rudolf |url=https://openlibrary.org/books/OL1701881M/Death_dealer |title=Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz |date=1992 |publisher=Prometheus Books |isbn=978-0-87975-714-4 |location=Buffalo, N.Y |page=42}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Hoess |first=Rudolf |url=https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.59888/page/220/mode/1up?view=theater |title=Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess |date=1951 |publisher=The World Publishing Company |pages=220 |via=Internet Archive}}</ref>

===Evacuation===
In late July 1944, with Soviet forces rapidly approaching Lublin, the Germans hastily evacuated the camp and partially destroyed the crematoria before Soviet [[Red Army]] troops arrived on July 24, 1944.<ref name="ww2db" >{{cite web|url=http://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=136|title=Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust - World War II Database|work=ww2db.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/camps.html |title=Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps 1933-1945 |access-date=2010-04-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091016033215/http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/ww2Timeline/camps.html |archive-date=2009-10-16 }}</ref> Majdanek is the best-preserved camp of the [[Holocaust]] due to incompetence by its deputy commander, [[Anton Thernes]]. It was the first major concentration camp liberated by Allied forces, and the horrors found there were widely publicised.<ref>{{citation|author=Staff Writer|title=Vernichtungslager|journal=Time Magazine|issue=August 21, 1944|url=https://time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,932705,00.html | date=August 21, 1944 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081214221659/https://time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,932705,00.html| access-date=Dec 14, 2008|archive-date=2008-12-14}}.</ref>

Although 1,000 inmates had previously been [[Death marches (Holocaust)|forcibly marched]] to Auschwitz (of whom only half arrived alive), the Red Army still found thousands of inmates, mainly POWs, still in the camp, and ample evidence of the mass murder that had occurred there.{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}

==Victims==
The official estimate of 78,000 victims, of those 59,000 Jews, was determined in 2005 by {{Interlanguage link|Tomasz Kranz|pl}}, director of the Research Department of the [[Majdanek State Museum]], calculated following the discovery of the [[Höfle Telegram]] in 2000. That number is close to the one currently indicated on the museum's website.<ref name="PMnM" /> The total number of victims has been a controversial since the research of Judge [[Zdzisław Łukaszkiewicz]] in 1948, who approximated a figure of 360,000 victims. It was followed by an estimate of around 235,000 victims by [[:pl:Czesław Rajca|Czesław Rajca]] (1992) of the Majdanek Museum, which was cited by the museum for years. The current figure is considered "incredibly low" by Rajca,<ref name="Reszka" /> nevertheless, it has been accepted by the Museum Board of Directors "with a certain caution", pending further research into the number of prisoners who were not entered into the [[Holocaust train]] records by German camp administration. For now, the museum states that based on new research, some 150,000 prisoners arrived at Majdanek during the 34 months of its existence.<ref name="PMnM">{{cite web |url=http://www.majdanek.eu/articles.php?acid=45 |title=Historia Obozu (Camp History) |publisher=Państwowe Muzeum na Majdanku (Majdanek State Museum) |work=KL Lublin 1941–1944 |year=2006 |access-date=10 August 2013 |author=PMnM staff writer |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130721054744/http://www.majdanek.eu/articles.php?acid=45 |archive-date=21 July 2013 }}</ref> Of the more than two million Jews murdered in the course of [[Operation Reinhard]], some 60,000 (56,000 known by name)<ref name="Prisoner Index">{{cite web |url=http://www.majdanek.eu/articles.php?acid=109 |title=Udzielanie informacji o byłych więźniach (Information about former inmates) |publisher=Państwowe Muzeum na Majdanku (Majdanek State Museum) |work=KL Lublin Prisoner Index |year=2013 |access-date=11 August 2013 |author=PMnM staff writer |quote=The Museum database consists of 56,000 names recorded by German camp administration usually with Germanized or (simplified) phonetic spelling with no diacritics. The Museum provides personal certificates upon written request. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130721080257/http://www.majdanek.eu/articles.php?acid=109 |archive-date=21 July 2013 }}</ref> were most certainly killed at Majdanek, amongst its almost 80,000 counted victims.<ref name="Reszka">{{cite web |last=Reszka |first=Paweł |date=23 December 2005 |title=Majdanek Victims Enumerated. Changes in the history textbooks? |url=https://www.auschwitz.org/en/museum/news/majdanek-victims-enumerated-changes-in-the-history-textbooks,44.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004213633/http://en.auschwitz.org/m/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=44&Itemid=8 |archive-date=4 October 2013 |work=Gazeta Wyborcza |publisher=[[Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum]]}}</ref><ref>{{citation |title=Aktion Reinhard |series=Shoah Resource Center, The International School for Holocaust Studies |publisher=Yad Vashem.org|page=2|date=29 Feb 2004 |url=http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%205724.pdf }}.</ref><ref name="Kranz">{{citation |last=Kranz |first=Tomasz |title=Ewidencja zgonów i śmiertelność więźniów KL Lublin |publisher=Zeszyty Majdanka |location=Lublin |year=2005 |volume=23 |pages=7–53}}.</ref>
[[File:Majdanek Double-Fence.jpg|left|thumb|Guard towers along the barbed-wire double-fence on the Majdanek camp perimeter]]
The Soviets initially grossly overestimated the number of murders, claiming at the [[Nuremberg Trials]] in 1946 that there were no fewer than 400,000 Jewish victims, and the official Soviet count was of 1.5&nbsp;million victims of different nationalities.<ref>
{{cite web 
|title=Nuremberg Trial. 19 Feb 1946. Evidence submitted by Polish-Soviet Extraordinary Commission's report on Maidanek |url=http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/02-19-46.asp}}</ref> Independent Canadian journalist Raymond Arthur Davies, based in Moscow and on the payroll of the [[Canadian Jewish Congress]],<ref name=delayed>{{cite book |title=Delayed Impact: The Holocaust and the Canadian Jewish Community |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TEOzC2c9gmYC&pg=PA25 |publisher=McGill-Queens|isbn=978-0-7735-2065-3|year=2002|last=Bialystok|first=Franklin|page=25}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |work=Canadian Jewish Congress Charities Committee National Archives |title=Collection Guide |url=http://www.cjccc.ca/national_archives/archives/arcguideD.htm |access-date=2011-02-12 |archive-date=2010-12-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101214213154/http://cjccc.ca///national_archives/archives/arcguideD.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> visited Majdanek on August 28, 1944. The following day he sent a telegram to [[Saul Hayes]], the executive director of the Canadian Jewish Congress. It states: "I do wish [to] stress that Majdanek where one million Jews and half a million others [were] killed"<ref name=delayed /> and "You can tell America that at least three million [Polish] Jews [were] killed of whom at least a third were killed in Majdanek",<ref name=delayed /> and though widely reported in this way, the estimate was never taken seriously by scholars.

In 1961, [[Raul Hilberg]] estimated that 50,000 Jewish victims were murdered in the camp.<ref name="Reszka" /> In 1992, Czesław Rajca gave his own estimate of 235,000; it was displayed at the camp museum.<ref name="Reszka" /> The 2005 research by the Head of Scientific Department at Majdanek Museum, historian Tomasz Kranz indicated that there were 79,000 victims, 59,000 of them Jews.<ref name="Reszka" /><ref name="Kranz" />

The differences between the estimates stem from different methods used and the amounts of evidence available to the researchers. The Soviet figures relied on the crudest methodology, used for [[Auschwitz]] estimates also—it assumed that the number of victims more or less corresponded to the crematoria capacity. Later researchers tried to take much more evidence into account, using records of deportations, contemporaneous population censuses, and recovered Nazi records. Hilberg's 1961 estimate, using these records, aligns closely with Kranz's report.{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}

{| class="wikitable"
|+Majdanek commandants
|-
! Name
! Rank
! Service and Notes
|-
|[[Karl-Otto Koch]] || ''[[Standartenführer|SS-Standartenführer]]'' || Camp commandant from October 1941 to August 1942. Tried and executed by the ''SS'' on April 5, 1945, for robbing the Reich of Jewish gold and money and committing multiple unauthorized murders.<ref name=DH341>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Whitlock |first=Flint |title=Karl Otto Koch. German Nazi commandant |encyclopedia=Britannica.com |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Karl-Otto-Koch |year=2017 |quote=Karl Otto Koch: German commandant of several Nazi concentration camps and husband of the infamous [[Ilse Koch]].}}</ref>
|-
|[[Max Koegel]] || ''[[Sturmbannführer|SS-Sturmbannführer]]'' || Camp commandant from August 1942 to November 1942. Committed suicide in [[Nuremberg trials|Allied detention]] in Germany the day after his arrest on June 27, 1946.<ref name="HEART">{{cite web |title=Majdanek Concentration Camp (a.k.a. KL Lublin) |url=http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/majdanek.html |publisher=H.E.A.R.T, Holocaust Research Project.org |year=2007 |first1=Chris |last1=Webb |first2=Carmelo |last2=Lisciotto}}</ref>
|-
|[[Hermann Florstedt]] || ''[[Obersturmführer|SS-Obersturmführer]]'' || Camp commandant from November 1942 to October 1943. Tried and sentenced to death by the ''SS'' on April 15, 1945, for stealing from the Reich to become rich, the same as Koch. Whether he was executed is unknown.{{r|HEART}}
|-
|[[Martin Gottfried Weiss]] || ''[[Obersturmbannführer|SS-Obersturmbannführer]]'' || Camp commandant from November 1, 1943 to May 5, 1944. Tried by the U.S. military during the [[Dachau trials]] in November 1945, hanged on May 29, 1946.{{r|HEART}}
|-
|[[Arthur Liebehenschel]] || ''[[Obersturmbannführer|SS-Obersturmbannführer]]'' || Camp commandant from May 5, 1944 to July 22, 1944. Tried by Poland at the [[Auschwitz trial]] in [[Kraków]], sentenced to death and hanged on January 28, 1948.{{r|HEART}}
|-
| colspan="3" |
* The second in command, throughout, was ''SS-Obersturmführer'' [[Anton Thernes]]. Tried at the [[Majdanek trials]] in [[Lublin]], found guilty of crimes against humanity, sentenced to death by hanging and executed on December 3, 1944.{{r|HEART}}
|}

==Aftermath==
{{multiple image
| direction = vertical
| header = The Memorial
| header_background = #F0E2B4
| width = 220
| image1 = Alians PL Obchody 64 rocznicy likwidacji KL Majdanek 23 07 2008,P7230064.jpg
| caption1 = Memorial at the "entry gate" to the camp. The [[Pylon (architecture)|symbolic Pylon]] is meant to represent mangled bodies.<ref name="majdanek.eu-Pomnik">{{cite web |url=http://www.majdanek.eu/articles.php?aid=335 |title="Jeśli ludzie zamilkną, głazy wołać będą." Pomnik ku czci ofiar Majdanka |publisher=Państwowe Muzeum na Majdanku (Majdanek State Museum) |access-date=2013-04-29 |author=Danuta Olesiuk, Krzysztof Kokowicz |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141023084508/http://www.majdanek.eu/articles.php?aid=335 |archive-date=2014-10-23 }}</ref>
| image2 = Majdanek - ashes mount.jpg
| caption2 = The Mausoleum erected in 1969 contains ashes and remains of cremated victims, collected into a mound after liberation of the camp in 1944.
}}
After the camp takeover, in August 1944 the Soviets protected the camp area and convened a special Polish-Soviet commission, to investigate and document the crimes against humanity committed at Majdanek.<ref>{{cite web |last=Witos|first=A. |display-authors=etal |title=Commique of the Polish-Soviet Extraordinary Commission for Investigating the Crimes Committed by the Germans in the Majdanek Extermination Camp in Lublin |website=JewishGen |year=1944|url=http://www.jewishgen.org/ForgottenCamps/Camps/MajdanekReport.html#1}}.</ref> This effort constitutes one of the first attempts to document the Nazi war crimes in Eastern Europe. In the fall of 1944 the
Majdanek State Museum was founded on the grounds of the Majdanek concentration camp.  In 1947 the actual camp became the monument of martyrology by the decree of [[Sejm|Polish Parliament]]. In the same year, some 1,300 m<sup>3</sup> of surface soil mixed with human ashes and fragments of bones was collected and turned into a large mound. Majdanek became a national museum in 1965.<ref name="majdanek.eu-Kalendarium">{{cite web |url=http://www.majdanek.eu/articles.php?acid=186 |title=Kalendarium |publisher=Państwowe Muzeum na Majdanku |work=Powstanie Państwowego Muzeum (Creation of the Museum) |access-date=2013-04-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110213052322/http://www.majdanek.eu/articles.php?acid=186 |archive-date=2011-02-13 }}</ref>

{{main|Majdanek trials}}
Some Nazi personnel of the camp were prosecuted immediately after the war, and some in the decades afterward. In November and December 1944, four SS Men and two [[Kapo (concentration camp)|kapos]] were placed on trial; one committed suicide and the rest were hanged on December 3, 1944.<ref>United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington.<!-- Originally: http://www.ushmm.org/uia-cgi/uia_doc/query/55?uf=uia_aRHTYn inaccessible --></ref> The last major, widely publicized prosecution of 16 SS members from Majdanek ([[:de:Majdanek-Prozess|''Majdanek-Prozess'']] in German) took place from 1975 to 1981 in West Germany. Of 1,037 SS members who worked at Majdanek and are known by name, 170 were prosecuted, due to a rule applied by the West German justice system allowing only those directly involved in the process to be charged with murder.

===Soviet NKVD use===
After the capture of the camp by the Soviet Army, the [[NKVD]] retained the ready-made facility as a prison for soldiers of the ''Armia Krajowa'' (AK, the [[Home Army]] resistance) loyal to the [[Polish Government-in-Exile]] and the ''Narodowe Siły Zbrojne'' ([[National Armed Forces]]) opposed to both German and Soviet occupation. The NKVD like the SS before them used the same facilities to imprison and torture Polish patriots.

On August 19, 1944, in a report to the Polish government-in-exile, the Lublin District of the [[Home Army]] (AK) wrote: "Mass arrests of the AK soldiers are being carried out by the NKVD all over the region. These arrests are tolerated by the [[Polish Committee of National Liberation]], and AK soldiers are incarcerated in the Majdanek Camp. Losses of our nation and the Home Army are equal to the losses which we suffered during the German occupation. We are paying with our blood."<ref>Tadeusz Walenty Pełczyński, ''Armia Krajowa w dokumentach 1939-1945''. Vol. IV: "Lipiec-Październik 1944"; Wrocław 1991, pp. 189, 200. {{OCLC|1151382417}}</ref>

Among the prisoners at the Majdanek NKVD Camp were [[27th Home Army Infantry Division (Poland)|Volhynian members of the AK]], and soldiers of the AK units which had been moving toward Warsaw to join in the [[Warsaw Uprising]]. On August 23, 1944, some 250 inmates from Majdanek were transported to the rail station [[Railway lines of Poland#List|Lublin Tatary]]. There, all victims were placed in cattle cars and taken to camps in [[Siberia]] and other parts of the Soviet Union.{{cn|date=September 2024}}

==Commemoration==
[[File:Alians PL Lublin StateMuseumKL Majdanek,2007 05 20,P5200312.jpg|thumb|upright|Map of the [[Majdanek State Museum]] site]]
In July 1969, on the 25th anniversary of its liberation, a large monument designed by [[Wiktor Tołkin]] (a.k.a. Victor Tolkin) was constructed at the site. It consists of two parts: a large gate monument at the camp's entrance and a large mausoleum holding ashes of the victims at its opposite end.

In October 2005, in cooperation with the Majdanek museum, four Majdanek survivors returned to the site and enabled archaeologists to find some 50 objects which had been buried by inmates, including watches, earrings, and wedding rings.<ref>{{citation|author=Staff Writer|chapter=Survivors find hidden treasures|title=News 24|date=November 15, 2005|publisher=news24.com|chapter-url=http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1834817,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060220104306/http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1834817,00.html|archive-date=February 20, 2006}}.</ref><ref name="Roberts_2005" />  According to the documentary film ''Buried Prayers'',<ref>{{cite web |url=http://buriedprayers.com/ |title=Home |website=buriedprayers.com}}</ref> this was the largest reported recovery of valuables in a death camp to date.   Interviews between government historians and Jewish survivors were not frequent before 2005.<ref name="Roberts_2005">{{citation|first=Sam |last=Roberts |title=Treasures Emerge From Field of the Dead at Maidanek |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/04/international/europe/04poland.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin|periodical=New York Times|date=November 4, 2005}}.</ref>

The camp today occupies about half of its original {{convert|2.7|km2|acre}}, and—but for the former buildings—is mostly bare. A fire in August 2010 destroyed one of the wooden buildings that was being used as a museum to house seven thousand pairs of prisoners' shoes.<ref>{{cite news|title=Brand in voormalig Pools concentratiekamp|newspaper=[[Radio Netherlands Worldwide]]|date=11 August 2010}}</ref> The city of Lublin has tripled in size since the end of [[World War II]], and even the main camp is today within the boundaries of the city of Lublin. It is clearly visible to many inhabitants of the city's high-rises, a fact that many visitors remark upon. The gardens of houses and flats border on and overlook the camp.{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}

In 2016, Majdanek State Museum and its branches, Sobibór and Bełżec, had about 210,000 visitors. This was an increase of 10,000 visitors from the previous year. Visitors include Jews, Poles, and others that wish to learn more about the harsh crimes against humanity.<ref>State Museum at Majdanek, accessed March 13, 2018. http://www.majdanek.eu/en.</ref>

==Notable inmates==<!-- PLEASE RESPECT ALPHABETICAL ORDER -->
[[File:Henio.jpg|thumb|[[Henio Zytomirski]], July 5, 1939]]
*[[Halina Birenbaum]] – writer, poet and translator
*[[Maria Albin Boniecki]] – artist
*[[Marian Filar (pianist)|Marian Filar]] – pianist
*[[Otto Freundlich]] – one of the artists included in the Nazis' 1937 "[[Degenerate Art]]" exhibition
*[[Mietek Grocher]] – Survived nine different camps. Author of ''Jag överlevde'' (eng. ''I Survived'').
*[[Israel Gutman]] – historian
* [[Roman Kantor]] (1912–1943) – épée fencer, [[Nordic countries|Nordic]] champion and Soviet champion; murdered by the Nazis
*[[Dmitry Karbyshev]] – Soviet general, [[Hero of the Soviet Union]]
*[[Omelyan Kovch]] – Ukrainian priest
*[[Dionys Lenard]] – escaped in 1942 warning the Slovak Jewish community
*[[Igor Newerly]] – writer
*[[Karl Plättner]] – revolutionary and author
*[[Helena Polaczkówna]] – Polish historian, war resistor
*[[Rudolf Vrba]] – transferred to Auschwitz, from which he escaped, and about which he co-authored the [[Vrba-Wetzler report]], one of the first inside reports of the camp, and published during wartime
*[[Henio Zytomirski]] – child icon of the Holocaust in Poland
* [[Sonia Mossé|Sonia Mosse]]<ref>A Political Education: Coming of Age in Paris and New York, Andre Schiffrin (2007)</ref> – actress and model for [[Man Ray]], subject of the famous photograph Nusch and Sonia
*[[Irena Iłłakowicz]] – Second Lieutenant of the NSZ (National Armed Forces) Polish resistance movement and an intelligence agent, escaped from the camp in 1943
*[[Yva]] – fashion photographer

==See also==
{{Portal|Germany|Poland}}
* [[Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics]]
* [[List of books about Nazi Germany]]
* [[List of Nazi concentration camps]]
* [[Research Materials: Max Planck Society Archive]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commons|Konzentrationslager Majdanek|Majdanek concentration camp}}
* [https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/tolkatchev/index.asp?WT.mc_id=wiki Private Tolkatchev at the Gates of Hell – Majdanek and Auschwitz Liberated: Testimony of An Artist] an online exhibition by [[Yad Vashem]]
* {{Official website|http://www.majdanek.eu|State Museum at Majdanek – official website}}
* [https://www.cincinnatijudaicafund.com/index.php/Detail/collections/83.html Catalog of Pins and Medals Commemorating the Majdanek Concentration Camp]
* [https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/lublin-majdanek-concentration-camp-conditions United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Holocaust Encyclopedia]
* [https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/gallery.php?ModuleId=10005190&MediaType=oi United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Oral Histories] [https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/film/liberation-of-majdanek Historical Film of Camp Conditions]
{{Nazi concentration camps}}
{{Holocaust Poland}}
{{The Holocaust}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Majdanek Concentration Camp}}
[[Category:Majdanek concentration camp| ]]
[[Category:1941 establishments in Germany]]
[[Category:1941 establishments in Poland]]
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[[Category:1943 in Poland]]
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[[Category:Monuments and memorials in Poland]]
[[Category:Museums in Lublin Voivodeship]]
[[Category:Registered museums in Poland]]
[[Category:World War II museums in Poland]]
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[[Category:World War II sites of Nazi Germany]]
[[Category:German extermination camps in Poland]]